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San Francisco housed Apples Annual Developer’s Conference on Monday June 8. In recent years Apple has garnished a cult-like following for their products. The company’s announcements elicited emotional cheering, clapping, and even at times booing. Apple certainly has achieved an unprecedented customer loyalty.
The highlights of the event included price-cut announcements, a new operating system for the MacBook Pro, and most importantly, the revelation of the newest version of the iPhone. The new iPhone 3GS boasts a faster browser, an improved still camera, and the additions of a compass and video recording capabilities. Some rebuked the $199 price tag; however, the phone matches the price of competing products of similar caliber.
Apple’s appears to be using its cult-like following for good instead of evil. Apple promoted green-friendly technology. In fact, the most recent MacBook released is the most energy efficient laptop to date. Hopefully Apple will further their green technology development and use their overreaching power to promote environmentally conscious practices. In the meantime other companies are emerging with new green technology. One of the more interesting examples is the Samsung Blue Earth.
In an attempt to help consumers be more eco-friendly, Samsung has come up with their most progressive answer to the iPhone. The phone is meant to resemble a pebble, and is colored blue to promote the idea of a preserved “Blue Earth” (from space, Earth appears to be blue). The phone is free from harmful substances and is made out of recycled water bottles. On the back of the phone there is a solar panel designed to harvest the sun’s energy to recharge the battery. To add to the Samsung Blue Earth’s green credentials, there’s easy access to controls for screen brightness and backlight duration, as well as an energy-efficient Bluetooth mode, so that you can save power. It even features an ‘eco walk’ function that uses a built-in pedometer to show you by how much walking, instead of driving, reduces CO2 emissions.
Samsung is also keen to point out that the Samsung Blue Earth’s packaging is made from recycled paper and the charger uses less than 0.03W in standby mode. Samsung is blazing a trail for green (or blue) cell phone users. Hopefully more companies will follow Samsung’s example.
